Streaming music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts has become like breathing for many people. You don’t think about it. You just do it. What you listen to on Apple Music or binge watch on Netflix is a matter of subjective taste and personal preference. The same holds true for sports opinions. It’s time for a little stream work and to share some thoughts that have been taking up bandwidth in my brain.
So, here’s a streaming of the sports consciousness:
1. The protests for social justice and racial equality by NFL players during the national anthem remain a polarizing and politically charged issue. They were back in the forefront last Monday after President Donald Trump disinvited the Super Bowl champion Eagles after it became evident that many Philadelphia players were going to take a pass on the traditional congratulatory White House visit. Here’s what people who contend that the method of protest is counterproductive to the cause have to understand. Using the anthem as a platform for protest is an act of exasperation and desperation designed to force people to stop blithely ignoring the issues. If pleas to acknowledge these issues had been taken seriously, then the anthem protests wouldn’t exist.
The first step in trying to effect change on issues of inequality is to appeal to basic fairness and decency. Next is to try to convince people of the merits of the argument. The third step is to beg people to ameliorate the situation. When none of that works and all of it goes unanswered, more radical measures become necessary to highlight the issue. To borrow from the cue cards that Eagles safety and Players Coalition member Malcolm Jenkins employed to address the issue, if you think the problem is the disrespect of the anthem protests then “YOU AREN’T LISTENING.’’ It never should have gotten to the point of anthem protests.
2. Sign me up for LeBron James as a member of the Celtics. It would be almost Shakespearean. LeBron and the Celtics are interwoven in NBA history. The Celtics have served as his antagonist, his foil, and could be his career coda. LeBron is the basketball behemoth that Boston basketball fans love to loathe. It would be an interesting plot twist for James, who said after the NBA Finals that he is still in “championship mode,’’ to chase another title and the Golden State Warriors in Celtic green.
After James and a Cavaliers team he dragged into the Finals were eviscerated in a sweep, he would have to be crazy or feel guilty to stay in Cleveland. Bringing the King to Causeway Street is a parquet pipe dream, of course. The esoteric confines of the NBA salary cap rule out him coming here as a free agent. Kyrie Irving, who sounds less than reassuring about remaining in green, landed with the Celtics because he wanted out of LeBron’s shadow. But anything is possible in the NBA.
3. NFL owners put themselves in a no-win situation by passing a policy that allows teams and commissioner Roger Goodell to discipline players who don’t stand for the national anthem. Their players are angry at them for abrogating their right to advocate, and President Trump is still hammering home the idea that NFL players have a patriotism problem, opining that remaining in the locker room is just as bad as choosing to kneel. More than a half-dozen NFL owners, including the Patriots’ Robert Kraft, contributed to Trump’s inaugural bash, and he keeps bashing their product to play to his base. The idea of ungrateful, unpatriotic black professional athletes is red meat in red states. The misguided anthem policy and backfiring attempt to appease the president show that NFL owners still don’t grasp the difference between their other businesses and pro football — in the NFL the players are the product. You can’t separate the disparagement of one from the other.
4. Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman has become collateral damage in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady cold war. There are different factions and agendas in Fort Foxborough. Edelman got caught in the crossfire. The news leaked on Thursday that Edelman had violated the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug policy, even though he was appealing the failed test. Edelman, who is coming back from a torn ACL he suffered last preseason, has rehabbed with both the Patriots training staff and Brady’s body coach/business partner Alex Guerrero.
Unlike Brady and Rob Gronkowski, Edelman has been a full participant in the Patriots’ offseason program. So, it’s interesting and convenient that the narrative is to immediately cast aspersions on Brady’s guru. Edelman’s positive seems to hew closer to aging, veteran Patriots players returning from injuries who got popped for PEDs such as Rodney Harrison in 2007 and Rob Ninkovich in 2016. Ninkovich was the same age as Edelman (32) when he got suspended.
5. It’s revisionist history to say Belichick is vindicated in his decision to curb Guerrero’s access and influence last season because of Edelman’s suspension. Belichick revoked Guerrero’s access because he disapproved of Guerrero’s message, not his methods. It was about maintaining control, not some sort of PED prescience.
Even after Guerrero was censured last season he was still a presence in the building during the week, treating Brady in a training room off the visitors’ locker room and allowed to eat in the team’s dining hall. Players were permitted to go to the TB12 Sports Therapy Center for treatment, some were even recommended to visit by the team. If you believe the guy is peddling PEDs, why would you allow him any player access?
6. Brady’s offseason has been brought to you by the letter M. He had been missing from Gillette Stadium before mandatory minicamp while popping up at the Milken Institute Global Conference, the Met Gala, and in Monaco. It’s a bad look for Brady if he skips the Patriots’ final set of organized team activities, which are scheduled for this Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. With Edelman’s looming suspension, it’s imperative that Brady’s builds a rapport with the receivers who could see playing time in place of Edelman. That’s Brady’s responsibility as a franchise quarterback, orchestrator of the offense, and team leader, regardless of any fractures in Foxborough.
7. Terrell Owens can be bitter about his Hall of Fame voting experience and how he was judged as a player and a person. However, now that T.O. has been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame he needs to show for the enshrinement ceremony in Canton, Ohio, on Aug. 4. Skipping the ceremony is disrespectful to the men in the gold blazers who are members of an exclusive pro football immortality fraternity. It’s gauche, selfish, and self-centered, the exact depictions of Owens that played a part in him being passed over for the Hall in 2016 and 2017.
8. You’ve heard the term manufacturing runs in baseball? It’s antediluvian in today’s exit-velocity game, but it could take on a whole new meaning now that Major League Baseball is getting into the business of manufacturing its official game balls. The league joined with Seidler Equity Partners to purchase Rawlings Sporting Goods last Wednesday for $395 million. Rawlings has been the exclusive supplier of baseballs for MLB since 1977, according to the New York Times. The cries that MLB manipulates baseballs to create more offense are only going to increase.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.
